Chapter Text
TG: anyway what do you think
EB: i don't really know, i mean...
EB: it's supposed to be like your ghostly spirit guide or something.
EB: unless you have the remains of a wise old dead grandparent lying around, i'm not sure what to tell you!
TG: ok fine but
TG: it seems to be suggesting something here
TG: and
TG: i guess im kinda weirded out by its suggestion
EB: i don't know, just do what it says!
EB: it knows stuff about the game, so it probably knows better than i do...
EB: i gotta go!
EB: gonna blast off to the seventh gate.
EB: and, uh, win this game i guess.
TG: ok well it definitely sounds like youre fucking something up over there
TG: but alright later
EB: later.
Dave looked away from the computer screen and glared at his kernelsprite once again. The simple crow head and sword shapes had grown both in size and design into an orange human-sized crow with a sword through its chest. After all the trouble it had put him through for the last four hours, it was strange to see it floating in place, doing absolutely nothing. Dave had tried talking to it earlier - by the end there'd been a lot of swearing as well - but it had appeared not to talk or was oblivious to everything he said. Which really sucked, especially with some of the choice comments he'd made on its brainless feathery asshole status. It was an absolute tragedy to think those had been wasted. He couldn't imagine anything more tragic.
Still, it didn't need to talk for him to pick up on what it meant that it was hovering patiently next to the remains of Lil Cal. "Stupid bird!" he yelled at it again. It continued to hover in place. Not his coolest move, but after watching that meteor bear down on him, his nerves were a trifle frayed. At least things should improve from here on out.
"You can't possibly think this is a good idea," he told it.
No answer.
Dave glanced around the roof. What other prototyping material could he use? Maybe fireworks? No, actually, that would be a really stupid idea. Prototyping with another sword probably wouldn't even work. And the idea of using one of the smuppets... Ugh.
He was distracted by Pesterchum producing a sound like a squeaky toy being run over by a car. He looked back to the computer.
EB: hey i just found the denizen! or its head anyway. it's pretty big.
EB: she was right, it's sleeping like a log.
EB: i feel bad for not trusting her at first.
EB: anyway i should be able to kill it no problem
EB: and then we'll have tons of stuff. plus some ultimate alchemy thing.
EB: it'll be like so cool.
TG: i guess
TG: seems kind of a lame way to win
EB: nah i'm sure it's fine
EB: brb
Dave returned to considering the stabbed crow sprite, still waiting patiently above the scraps of Lil Cal. Maybe it knew what it was doing. He grudgingly admitted it had been right about the egg.
Dave watched the impassive sprite again, then let out a long, defeated sigh. He picked up the tattered remains of Cal's upper body and held them up to the kernelsprite. Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad thing. He was just a bit jumpy at the moment. But Cal was a pretty cool dude, after all.
He just hoped that this was a good idea. It wasn't like he'd get another chance to do this.
88
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --
TT: Dave, John isn't answering me.
TG: maybe hes busy
TG: he said he was going to try to gank the denizen
TG: btw my sprite doesnt seem to talk
TG: i mean nothing understandable
TG: any advice
TT: What denizen?
TG: i dont know ask john
TG: something pretty big i guess
TG: id ask my sprite
TG: if you can figure out how to make it talk i mean
TG: thatd be good
TT: I'll ask Jaspers. He mentioned something about a denizen earlier.
TT: Perhaps he can shed some light on things.
TG: yeah thanks so much thats real helpful
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --
TT: Explain.
TG: what
TT: Jaspers says the denizen amounts to the end boss of the planet.
TT: The only reason it doesn't kill us is that it's asleep until we progress far enough.
TT: It can only be reached from the seventh gate.
TT: Which he is nowhere near reaching right now.
TG: well john has a rocket pack now didnt you see him
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --
88
"HAA HAA HEE HEE HOO HOO!" the puppet cackled.
"Look," Dave said. "Denizens. You're like some fount of cryptic bullshit wisdom right? So lay some on me. I am all about the exposition. Dunk my head in the videogame nonsense baptismal because I am a convert."
"HAA HAA HEE HEE HOO HOO!"
He flinched just slightly at the sound of metal groaning he could hear even over Cal's giggling and couldn't help but throw a glance over his shoulder at the weirdly elongated satellite tower stretching into the sky, wobbling slightly. He didn't know what Jade had been thinking, building that. She was probably asleep again. This cackling jackass for a sprite and a dopy narcoleptic as his server, just his luck.
"How about a vague useless reference to some stupid puzzle shit I'm going to have to deal with?"
"HAA HAA HEE HEE HOO HOO!"
"You know some long thing that's nonsense that has just enough to do with it that when I finally brute force my way through five hours later you can repeat it smugly and I'll be like shit man, OWLS, I was supposed to count out how many letters were between the O and W in the alphabet and divide by L minus S, god if only I'd been able to figure that out it'd have been so easy, and then you can cackle like a brainless asshole."
"HAA HAA HEE HEE HOO HOO!"
"Yeah you too buddy, I guess I'll just kill imps for a while."
88
-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --
TG: hey
TG: jade
TG: sometimes it seems you know stuff
TG: i mean important stuff
TG: that the rest of us dont
TG: so do you know how johns doing
TG: im not worried its just hes such a dork sometimes
TG: probably wasting time on something stupid
TG: and rose is getting antsy
TG: plus ive got to tell him about his advice
TG: about my sprite
TG: how much i appreciate it
TG: probably thought it was the funniest thing ever
TG: it is unreal how dead he is going to be when i get my hands on him
TG: really though its my fault for listening to him
TG: i mean what sort of idiot listens to advice from someone like him
TG: still going to kill him for this
TG: or maybe the applejuice thing
TG: not that you heard that from me
TG: jade
TG: dammit youd better not be asleep or something
TG: jade?
-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --
-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --
TG: rose
TG: rose
TG: rose
TG: rose
TG: rose
TG: ROSE
TG: rose
TT: Yes?
TG: oh ok youre there then
TG: starting to think everyone had decided to stop answering
TG: scared off by how cool i am or something
TG: not that i blame you
TG: but anyway whats up with jade
TT: She contacted me earlier, to ask if John had found the disk yet.
TT: The meteorite should be starting to approach, although she still has time.
TT: I told her about John's situation.
TT: She assured me she knew he would be okay.
TT: Then decided to go to sleep to wake him up.
TT: Whatever that means.
TG: well of course hes ok
TG: hes probably doing some stupid victory dance
TG: with moonwalking and that sort of thing
TG: back and forth to collect all that grist
TG: hes always spazzing out like that
TG: no worries
-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] –
-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --
TG: jade
TG: jade
TG: jade
TG: jade
TG: jade
TG: jade
TG: jade
TG: jade
TG: dammit jade wake up already
TG: jade
TG: wake the fuck up
-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --
She'd probably just fallen asleep in the middle of her pumpkin patch, Dave thought. He looked up, seeing the blue spirographs hovering in the air and the creaking metal tower.
"HAA HAA HEE HEE HOO HOO!"
"Just...shut up," he said.
-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --
TG: ok my sprite doesnt talk
TG: so youre going to have to tell me
TG: theres these gates and stuff
TG: where do they go
TG: they go to different places right
TG: like can i go to your planet or something
TT: The second gate apparently moves you to the next planet on the ring.
TG: ok thanks
-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --
There was no way he was climbing that thing. It'd taken him four damn hours just to get up to the nest his original shishkabobed sprite, whose quiet brainless asshole behavior he was already thinking longingly of, had made. The first gate was even further up. And the whole thing hadn't been wobbling back then.
Well, he had grist to spare and time, like imps, to kill. Maybe he could alchemize something to get him up there. He opened the door to the stairs and stabbed his broken blade through the imp waiting beyond. Had to do something about that too, he thought, as he hacked them methodically into grist. Then one of them jumped him from behind.
"HAA HAA HEE HEE HOO HOO!" screamed his sprite as he lay in a pile of grist at the bottom of the stairs. It was half in and half out of them, staring at him with huge eyes like orange creamicles left to melt on hot asphalt. Wait, how would that work.
"Could've warned me about that bro," Dave said, feeling utterly chill. It might have had something to do with the sense he was floating just out of his skin. His head felt like helium had been pumped in. His vision swam. He closed his eyes only to find himself still staring at that same dead gaze. "No fair," he muttered as he got to his feet. Everything spun for a minute.
"HAA HAA HEE HEE HOO HOO!"
"Yeah yeah," he told Cal's head, walking back into the apartment. "Wouldn't have done any good to warn me. Stairs are the anti-cool, the enemy of all cool dudes like me. You'd just be like, 'I warned you about the stairs man,' right now. Except then you'd be talking so I guess that'd be a lot better. Maybe we can pretend you warned me but I still fell down there like an unwarned dumpass."
"HAA HAA HEE HEE HOO HOO!"
There were more imps when he opened the door. He started stabbing again. "Then you can say 'I warned you, I warned you man!' I mean you seem like the kind of guy who likes a good gloat. So you can get your gloating float on right now if you want." He giggled, then stopped, feeling confused. He rubbed the back of his own head then examined his hand. Yep, he was bleeding good. "Good thing I'm a redhead," he said to Calsprite. "Just blends in. Wouldn't want Jade to flip the fuck out or anything when she gets back on. It does right?"
The sprite just cackled.
"Okay that's great thanks." He surveyed the room. Various pieces of plush jutted out impudently. There had to be something else he could use. Anything else.
There were still a couple weapons he'd left on the wall, of the sharp-object-attached-to-chain type. He was not sure actually what specibi they used. Though they might appear cool to the untrained eye like John, they were [i]faux[/i] cool, as everyone who knew anything about ninjas, which was everyone who knew anything worthwhile, knew they were only used midway though, once the hero had finished mowing down mooks but still had a couple fight scenes before the boss. Hero dodges, sickle or whatever end up stuck in wall, hero goes on to have swordfight with boss.
Actually using them would be deeply uncool. The ironic brilliance of collecting them and putting them on the kitchen wall was therefore obvious. Really, to tamper with them now would be like licking a da Vinci painting. It was not quite an ironic counterpart to the Mona Lisa, but it was up there.
He captchalogued the lot of them.
He managed to dig up some old figurines Bro must have bought as players in puppet drama, one of which shot out a retractable net, as well as a toy whip one smuppet was armed with because chains were crap. After that it was a matter of working his way through all possible combinations, no matter how good of an idea stopping seemed when it produced a My First Kidnapping kit followed by a Bondage Joe toy.
He had nothing much else to do The imps were everywhere and there was no way he was going to sleep until he'd cleaned them out and barricaded every door in the house. So he kept trying new codes and reminding himself that he didn't care about the fact Cal was staring and cackling and cackling and staring, definitely didn't care or about how the sprite kept following him around and going silent and then suddenly appearing through the wall in front of him with its unblinking eyes fixed on him, words could not express how utterly okay he was with this.
It was maybe two-thirty in the morning when he saw the last one, although it took him longer to realize this and longer still making sure they were gone. He blocked the door and window, definitely did not cringe when Calsprite phased in through the barrier, and collapsed onto his bed with his alarm clock glowing 3:14.
"HAA HAA HEE HEE HOO HOO!"
"Shut up," he mumbled, pulling the pillow over his head.
-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --
TG: hey are you awake
TG: rose hey wake up
TT: I am.
TG: ok cool i need you to get building
TT: Dave.
TT: Dave, what do you think you're doing?
TT: How are you even there?
TG: jade built up to the second gate earlier
TG: while i was grinding imps.
TG: its all kinds of shitty because she just made the satellite tower higher
TG: not sure its actually that stable
TG: and kind of totally a bitch to climb
TG: but i guess it was cheap or something
TG: anyway i made this grappling hook thing to get up
TT: This does not answer my question.
TG: but it turns out SOMEONE didnt build up johns side
TG: had to get rescued by the freaky blue one armed ghostsprite
TG: what were you thinking with that thing
TG: but whatever i guess
TG: at least it only laughs sometimes
TG: just start building up toward the gate ok
TG: oh yeah i should send you the gristtorrent code
TG: unless youve already got that i guess
TG: thisll probably take a lot of grist
TG: can barely even see the gate from here
TT: The seventh gate you mean?
TG: yeah what else
TG: ill meet up with john
TG: probably broke his stupid computer or something
TG: he's so lame
TT: Dave, I don't know if that's a good idea.
TG: its the best idea ever im sure jade is getting antsy
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] is an idle chum! --
TG: dammit what now
88
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --
TT: Dave...
TG: hey rose
TG: cool youre back so lets get going
TG: ive been killing imps and making all sorts of stuff
TG: shit is getting unreal here
TT: ...I'm not sure how to tell you this, but...
TG: yeah?
TT: Dave... Jade is dead.
TG: not funny rose
TT: I'm not joking. There's a lab near my house that shows all of the meteors and how much time until their impact.
TT: Jade's was scheduled to hit about an hour ago.
TG: but if john got the beta and got her into the medium she'll be fine right?
TT: I think he would have contacted us if that was the case.
TG: no maybe he just can't communicate for some reason
TG: you know how much of a dork he can be sometimes
TT: If he can't communicate, I don't think he can connect as the server either, even if he did get the beta.
TG: it wouldnt be the first weird thing
TT: Dave, I don't think he got the beta. I don't think he left.
TG: what are you talking about the denizen was sleeping
TT: I've talked to Jaspers. Sburb seems to be adaptive. This isn't some regular game where bad coding means going through the wrong door lets you skip half the events. It's designed for players like us.
TT: If sequence breaking is even possible it's not easy.
TT: One of the trigger conditions for waking the denizen up could be the player walking into the room.
TG: but it was sleeping
TT: He might have been talking to us from outside the room. It could have woken up the moment he entered.
TG: it was sleeping
TG: he said he could see it and it was sleeping
TT: Or it could be it woke up when he attacked.
TT: Or when he wasn't able to kill it on the first blow.
TT: Anything, really.
TG: so what are you saying
TT: I think John is dead too, Dave.
TG: rose if youre screwing with me now would be a good time to tell me
TT: I'm not. Sburb is a dangerous game.
TT: What do you think would have happened to me if I hadn't broken that bottle?
TT: Or if I tried to fight a monster far beyond my current capabilities?
TG: no
TG: im sure hes fine
TG: youll see ok
TG: just build up to the gate and ill go get him
TG: well have a big laugh about all of it
TG: and hell connect to jade and get her in too
TG: and shell say something annoying
TG: about how we were late and screwing up her precog schedule
TT: I'm sorry, Dave.
TG: you dont know anything
TG: just build to the gate and youll see
TT: No.